


Thursday Never Looking Back

by prodigy



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Leitner Books, M/M, Pre-Canon, The Web / The Spider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prodigy/pseuds/prodigy
Summary: Jon meets Gerry Keay much earlier in life. It takes a few tries to stick.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 24
Kudos: 255
Collections: The Magnus Archives Rare Pairs 2020





	Thursday Never Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [In_Flagrante_Delicto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_Flagrante_Delicto/gifts).



Jon met the runaway almost two years after The Cure's album _Wish_ came out on record, two months after he'd saved up a little to buy it; he was in the process of trying to return it. This timeline stuck in his mind because the boy outside the shop looked like the sort who already owned all the others.

This wasn't bad. The clothes the strange boy was wearing weren't bad clothes--black up and down and draped over by a leather coat that was a little ill-at-home on his angular frame. But he was taller than Jon, maybe one or two years older, and that style had a little sparkle of counterculture rebellion in Jon's eyes at the time.

He didn't know much about counterculture. He wasn't entirely sure of culture, truthfully, and that seemed an important first step. But he admired--secretly--anyone who seemed a little different and careless about it. He'd always been different; he had never had the knack of being careless.

But he had a record--still new--tucked under his arm, and his own concerns, and he was shy of drawing strangers' attention. He wouldn't have, but the teenager's motions caught his eye.

He was shivering. It was beach season in Bournemouth, a comfortable wedge of tourist economy, and the weather to prove it. But the boy was shivering--which was getting in his way, because he was attempting to thread a needle. His eyes, smudged only a little, were fixed with determination on his work. His hands weren't cooperating.

Maybe it was that he was trying to do something. It was impossible, really, not to want to help someone who was really trying to do something. Even if the something didn't make any sense.

Jon pondered whether the strange boy looked like he was on drugs. He wasn't sure of the criteria, but he decided no. His footsteps stalled in front of him, on the street in front of the shop; it occurred to him he didn't know how to get his attention, or if he should. He was twelve, which should have given him plenty of time to practice getting attention, but he hadn't the hang of that either. But he didn't have to--the boy's eyes travelled up quick, dark and lucid, and stared back at him.

Startled, Jon stepped back. He almost mumbled something and brushed by: but the shivering hadn't stopped, he noticed, even in all his clothing and in the bright sun. If anything it was stronger without a task to distract the stranger. Self-conscious, though, he brought the Cure record to his chest and bundled his arms around it; "Are you okay?" he said. "I was wondering if you were okay."

The other boy stared at him like he was speaking an unintelligible language.

"I-I didn't mean to bother you," said Jon, as thoughts flitted through his head--was he being rude? Was this weird? Was _Wish_ a bad record and the other boy knew it?--"I was just wondering if you were okay--sorry, I wasn't staring. I--"

"--Oh. Yes. --Yes, I'm okay. And it's okay," the stranger burst out, in a rush of speech that surprised Jon: maybe he'd expected that goths didn't talk? -- and he smiled, too. The smile really made it clear how weary he looked. Jon had never seen someone his age with shadows that deep underneath his eyes. "--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"You didn't," said Jon with some affront.

The smile only creased a little deeper, and the weariness with it. "Okay. Well, I didn't mean to delay you, then."

"It's all right." Jon shifted, uncertain; "Where do you live? Do you need… um, do you need someone to…" He trailed off when he realised he couldn't think of an end to the sentence that wasn't presumptuous, or dramatic, or a bit--well, now it could stand as an ambiguously obliging offer. The best of all worlds.

The boy shook his head, vehement, as if to close every one of these undefined doors. "No. Not around here. I'm fine. Thank you."

"Oh."

"I'll be fine. I'm just--I'm passing through," an odd thing for a boy of thirteen or fourteen to say, "and I was looking for something. And I've run into some issues--but it'll be all right. Thank you for your concern." A smile again, but his look was piercing. "--You know you're the first to ask?"

"Well, if you're sure--"

"I am. Hey. Thank you. … _Wish_ was pretty good, I thought, for being so pop?"

It seemed like a bad time to mention that Jon had not had the chance to listen, and was about to try to give it back. He nodded hopefully.

"Before you go," said the boy, like this was a statement by itself.

Jon waited, obediently, with his arms still wrapped around the record.

The strange boy reached out a hand--his fingernails were painted black, which for some reason startled Jon with a stupid, surprised flush. He laid it, nails and all, along Jon's cheek. His skin was feverishly hot. The needle and thread had been tucked away somewhere.

"There are bad things afoot," he said. "This is a little blessing. I wish I could do better--well, be safe."

"You should get your temperature checked," said Jon, stupidly.

The boy chuckled. Something about the quality of it was odd, but in a low way that prickled uneasily at Jon's mind. He stared at the other teenager--who looked back at him, now neutral and composed--and had to admit that this didn't seem like an emergency. --But the goth boy didn't seem to be going anywhere, either.

This put Jon in an awkward position. For some reason he couldn't fathom the idea of going into the shop, negotiating a refund, and then walking past him again--still threading something, still shivering. So he just lowered his eyes and walked away, briskly, _Wish_ still tucked uselessly beneath his folded arms.

When he returned he told his grandmother they wouldn't take it. She made a disapproving noise and gave him a swat with the wooden spoon she was using, albeit a half-hearted one; "that's the trouble with your impulse purchases," she said, "you think you can undo them but you can't. You'll be sick of it within a fortnight. Well, so be it. Keep your record--no child _needs_ to own music. You'll be wishing it was two books, or magazines, or lunches, no doubt."

He was only half-listening: in fact he was relieved, a little thrilled that a tiny lie had kept him his Cure album--a little guilty, at this point in his life. And he was thinking about the boy at the shop. It occurred to him what was odd about the quality of his laugh: it wasn't weary or strung-out. He didn't sound detached from reality. If anything, the idea that Jon wished him to see a doctor was a source of charmed amusement. A very ordinary reaction--with just a little irony. They were just at that age now where the unfairness of their lives was starting to look a bit funny.

* * *

In six months' time Jon encountered him again in Bournemouth--well, where else? Jon wasn't exactly a globetrotter.

He was hiding, if that was the right word, from the usual boys; well, it was _hiding_ , but it wasn't very high-effort and, to be honest, it was no longer a source of great distress. At this point in Jon's life, bully evasion was more of a set of trained manoeuvres he put into dull practice day after day, mostly with success, except when he got sloppy or unlucky. Today he'd taken the chance to sneak away from the lunchroom, climb the outer fence, and eat in the shade of the concrete wall that divided his school from the construction site next to it that looked destined for birth as an office complex.

He set aside his sandwich and tucked his bag back into the shadow. It didn't make him look any older, really, but at least it didn't immediately bring shirking to mind to anyone who might walk by. Then he found his folded page in his copy of _The Last Unicorn_.

"Do you dog-ear?"

With excruciating reflex Jon snapped his gaze up and his book shut, flipping it incriminating-unicorn-cover-side-in and clutching it defensively to his chest in one accustomed motion. Then he registered what he was looking up at: not Jim or Jeremy from his school ready to find him out for his reading material and make it known to everyone what that made him (like they needed further convincing), but a goth. Actually the only goth of his personal acquaintance. It hadn't even been much of an acquaintance, so that was saying something. He wasn't shivering now; but he looked a great deal worse for the wear.

Jon's music shop goth was standing, dressed much the same way in exactly the same coat, though it was loosely unbuttoned; but one of his eyes was blackened, not with eyeshadow, but with the ugly texture of a bruise. His lip was split also--or had been, and was scabbing now--and his other cheek abraded with a scrape; he looked to have been in a fight. An ugly one. Uglier than Jon knew people their age to get into.

There were bandages wrapped around either of his hands, as well; his fingers were clean and free, but the palms were dressed. One was stained.

Jon gaped at him. He remembered the question and tried to understand it; then he remembered the book he was holding. "You mean fold the page? I mean, yeah. It's just a paperback," he said, defensively.

"My mum wouldn't like that. But I think she's in the wrong there--what you have is a copy from a print run, right?"

Jon supposed so. He stared warily up, still trying to ascertain what was happening.

"Well, then it's not a one-of-a-kind. It's all good. --My name is Gerry Keay. Do you go to school here?"

"Yes," said Jon, blinking.

"Are they expecting you back soon?"

Jon frowned. "Yes. I go to school here."

Gerry Keay sighed. Jon had never heard anyone younger than a parent sigh with such a weight; it slumped his shoulders visibly. He brought his hand with the clean bandage up to his uninjured eye and rubbed it.

Jon put his sandwich back in his bag, and his book. He was still protective of the title and cover. He got to his feet and cocked his head, waiting; after a moment Gerry glanced at him.

"--I mean, I said they were _expecting_ me," said Jon. "I didn't say they would care particularly." He reached his hands out, concerned, offering--he didn't know what. Gerry didn't seem to know either; he seemed bemused. Jon dropped his hands again. "... Okay, do you want to go someplace?"

* * *

Under the auspices of this exceptionally vague offer, Jon ducked underneath the barrier around the currently-vacant construction site and beckoned Gerry after him. He found them a dry spot under scaffolding, where they sat against the skeleton of a wall, half-built, and Jon gave Gerry Keay half his ham sandwich.

"I'm away from home," Gerry said by way of explanation. "The last time I was here for other reasons. --Well, I had also run away from home, but that wasn't the point. But I came back this time."

Jon's eyes were wide. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that this was the exact sort of other kid that his grandmother didn't think he should be speaking to, for several reasons. One of them was probably drugs. There were others. But now the recurrence of the thought made him feel ashamed; not because he was worried about being here, but because he was a little excited.

Here he was talking to a runaway with some sort of horrible life, he thought; and here he was thinking about how much his grandmother wouldn't approve. How silly could he be?

"Why did you come back?" said Jon, though it wasn't the first or most burning of his questions.

"Here? Oh, it's nice. It's like a holiday town. I thought, if I'm going to be somewhere, why not be somewhere it seems okay to be?"

Jon had never really thought this of Bournemouth, and was silent.

Gerry gave him a small smile, but his eyes were in a different mood. It was difficult to read. He looked like he might say something else, but he didn't.

"What happened to you?" said Jon in a small voice, looking at him sideways. They were sitting next to one another, facing the same way. In this direction Jon could see Gerry's clothes, which were dirtied black, and the scraped and bruised side of his face.

"A man my mum was with, I suppose. He had a quarrel with her and he drew me into it."

This seemed depressingly common. Jon was busy contemplating, with some guilt, the strangeness that always came to him when hearing of others' parents, when Gerry added--

"--well. I mean, she was with him because he was a notorious murderer in the London gangs and she was trying to see if she could 'conceive a child in blood.' And I think she thought he was funny? But when that didn't work she decided to harvest his soul through his skin, but he was difficult to subdue."

Jon stopped mid-chew.

"He tried to escape and he encountered me and thought I was part of it," said Gerry, philosophically. "I guess I wasn't not. Anyway, I just--the whole thing... the idea of having a-- ... I don't know. I mean, I run off all the time. I guess I have to go back."

He put out his hand, near Jon's, seemingly not by design; Jon was too frozen to flinch away from him. His nail polish was chipped.

"My mother is a sorcerer," said Gerry Keay matter-of-factly. "She murders and binds dead souls to a book. She collects books like that. The last time I was in Bournemouth was because we saw in a book called the _Atlas of the Moirae_ that the web of Great Design--er, that's... you know, I'm not sure, but it isn't good--was connected most tightly in a few places, and one of them was here. But she isn't very interested in that--says that the Great Design isn't something she and I can involve ourselves in actively, so there's no point." He dug his teeth into his bottom lip. "Which is the usual kind of bullshit that she says. So I went looking--but I guess she's right? Anyway, it looks the same this year, so maybe it is pointless."

He dug his unharmed hand into his pocket, rummaging; as he did he said, almost as an aside: "Do you believe me?"

Jon could tell it wasn't. It was too tight to be casual--too affected. Maybe that helped. It was easier to trust other people who weren't very good at lying.

"Yes," he said. It also came out small.

Something sagged within Gerry again, this time maybe a touch of relief: relief-exhaustion, when you stop running and you find you've been using energy you don't have. "You seemed nice," he said. "I'm sorry about this. I really shouldn't be doing this."

"It's okay," said Jon, in all honesty. "It's just a sandwich."

"Do you have a cigarette?"

"No." Jon was scandalised.

Gerry laughed, a little loud. He looked amused in a way that made Jon stare at the ground with an unfamiliar flush of discomfort. "Okay. Worth a try. --Hey, angel of mercy. What on earth is your name?"

"J-Jon- ... -athan Sims?"

"Nice to meet you, Jon," said Gerry, and finally dug into his food.

* * *

Jon contrived admission for Gerry to a swimming pool and waited outside, awkward, while Gerry showered. It was the first thing that occurred to Jon: you could get food in places on the run, probably, but showers were difficult to come by. He sat on the bench with his legs up and wondered what sort of place he could find for Gerry to sleep; when Gerry came out in his same clothes, but with his black hair wet and slicked neatly to his head, he still didn't have an answer. When he put this question to Gerry, Gerry shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Thank you, though. You really are nice. You looked like you would be."

"I'm not that nice," said Jon, frowning. "I'm just the default level of nice."

Gerry raised his eyebrows in a way Jon found supercilious, but said nothing. To Jon's frustration, he had to admit he would probably look silly arguing with someone like Gerry about his own relative naivete.

"What was that book you were reading?" Gerry changed the subject. "Do you like it?"

Jon hesitated, but it seemed like genuine interest--"Um, it's _The Last Unicorn_ , by an author named Beagle? Like the dog. ... It's pretty. I mean it's like, yes, like the title sounds it's got a fairytale element, but it's very melancholic--about things not lasting, or lasting forever."

"In my experience things last too fucking long," said Gerry, looking for something in his pockets again real or made-up.

Jon shrugged, like he didn't know what to say; but the truth was the profound flood of relief he felt at meeting another boy his age who didn't hate him for what he was interested in.

Then again, Gerry was from an evil sorcerer family. Or if he wasn't, he was making up lies about being. And in either case it was probably hard to find people to relate to as well. They went to a cafe together and Gerry ordered coffee--almost black, like an adult, and Jon admired this surreptitiously; here Jon learnt that Gerry was not exactly his age, but was fourteen, and had indeed grown since they'd last met. (Jon had had his birthday. Thirteen had not gifted him with much extra height.) And Gerry asked Jon questions too: "I saw you owned _Wish_. Do you like The Cure?" (Yes, he did.) "What about The Smiths?" (Them as well.) "Do you want a cigarette?" (Jon accepted, and tried to pretend like he did this all the time.)

When Gerry asked if he lived with his parents, Jon told him about his life: or his unusual lack of it, as far as he was concerned. "I'm sorry," said Gerry, companionably. "I've got a fifty to your zero--my dad's dead too. I didn't know him."

Jon didn't ask if he was also a notorious murderer.

"But the half I have is a horrendous bitch. So?"

Jon must have looked aghast. Gerry half-rolled his eyes, a little defencive, but he laughed too: "God, all right. You know, you make me feel bad. And that isn't fair. You know why, is I know you wouldn't fucking feel bad if you knew my mum."

This was the autumn of the thirteenth year of Jon's life: the first he'd ever learnt of magic, the first cigarette he smoked, and the first year of Gerard Keay.

* * *

Gerry did go back to his mother within the week. He calmed Jon's protests--he always did, he said bitterly but kindly, and she would not beat him, kill him, or put him in a book. _I've learnt my lesson_ , he said with a grim smile; _why hurt me now? My coming back is proof enough. She only harms things she fears to lose, or once she no longer needs them._

Jon wondered about him. He dug up all he could on the occult, in the time being; he endured blows and scatterings of his possessions and mockery, the apathy of teachers, the exasperation of his grandmother, and he looked. There was nothing that didn't seem designed to sell Wicca or tarot products. More than anything, he endured friendlessness.

He had never had to endure that before. That was the uncomfortable thing that Gerry had left him with. Jon had never had anyone to miss. And this was stupid; he was probably never seeing him again, after all. But he did--he did miss him. It was like he'd grown too large for a bed that had fit him adequately before.

He wondered what Gerry was doing. He wrote him letters--stupid letters, by longhand in cursive script and then, upon anxious reflection on the quality of his cursive, in print--and stowed them in his desk, having nowhere to send them. He was aware this was all slightly deranged. There was a strong chance he would never meet Gerard Keay again, and an even stronger one Gerard Keay had forgot all about him in the interim. The life he lived was, at least, eventful. It was not likely to have much room for emphasis on the memory of Jonathan Sims.

Jon dreamed and fretted anyway. When he was fifteen and a half, his grandmother travelled to Kent for a week to visit her daughter, his aunt, and her son-in-law and other grandchildren; and on the third day Gerry Keay turned up on his doorstep with longer hair, swept back into a braid, and the glow of better health under his eyes--and a rucksack.

"I suppose I'm not really a runaway now," he said to Jon, who was aglow with delight, over the kitchen table. "As I'm seventeen, I'm really more of an impromptu budget traveller? But it seems I'm in luck."

"How did you know this was the right time?" said Jon, curious.

"I absolutely didn't. I was intending to find a hotel room."

"Well, you don't have to," said Jon with a little smile that he restrained, trying not to look the way he felt; "We have a guest room. It has its own tub."

They stayed up together talking into the evening and then the early hours of the night, sitting on the furniture and then at one point on the floor around a neglected backgammon board. Gerry explained to him what he knew of the world beyond the world-- _or within the world_ , he mused, _depending how you look at it._ What he was concerned with primarily, he said, was the personal collection of a remarkably wicked man.

Jon was rapt. "Is that why you're here again?"

"Hm? Oh, not at all, I've stopped by to see you on my way."

At this point Jon was wondering if he was about to find out if he had a visible blush. This was halted, though, when Gerry reached into the rucksack. "But it is what I was doing just a few days ago," he said.

The book he produced had the title _Architecture of Babel_.

"What is it about?" said Jon. "Is it bad?"

"I suppose that depends upon who you ask? As far as anyone can tell, reading any of it renders you unable to communicate with or understand anyone else. And I don't just mean language--I mean also gestures, meaning, symbol, _anything_. It's a profound aloneness. It's the work of somebody named Jedediah Lukas--er, it's an inbred posh family from Germany originally that used to follow some sort of Protestant cult, and over time it's become more of a family-specific cult in its own right. To be honest, they're very secretive, but it seems they believe in silence and isolation. Makes you wonder why they didn't just all read their own damn book. --Anyway, no, I didn't, as you can see."

Jon nodded along, interested--a little allured, to be honest, but Gerry seemed to see this and snatched it back and put it away before he could even find the author's name along the leather binding. "Does it _work_?" he asked. "How would you know?"

"Well, I don't know for certain, do I? But based on the condition of the people I got it from--well, let's say I'm fairly confident." Gerry shrugged. "And in the worst case I'll just be destroying an obscure old book."

It was three nights that Gerry stayed with Jon: he'd intended one, but now that he didn't have to pay for a hotel, he explained, he was more willing to shamelessly prevail upon Jon's hospitality. When Jon cooked him breakfast the next morning, Gerry--in a Bauhaus shirt that he'd slept in--watched him with sort of an awful innocent wonder; and they ate their eggs together and Jon felt, really knew, that he was doing something illicit, and that he knew what sort of illicit his grandmother would take it to be. He didn't mention. He tried not to think about, in case it came out somehow. This wasn't something he wanted to ruin.

"Thank you," said Gerry, smiling at him levelly when it came time for him to go. Gerry was noticeably the taller of them now, though Jon had started to grow now too; Gerry took Jon by either forearm, clasping him and then letting him go. Neither of them seemed accustomed to the concept of a hug. "I always appreciate what you do for me. I don't think I appreciate it enough."

"Don't," said Jon, with a throatiness that embarrassed him. "It's nothing. I mean--we're friends, right? So it's not really altruistic."

"Just the default level of nice?"

Jon wrinkled his nose. "Exactly that."

"Take care of yourself." Gerry let him go, suddenly serious. "You need to look out for yourself here. You're still living in the nexus of something or other, and it still isn't good. I don't want you to become a casualty of someone else's problem. I'm going to give you a telephone number where you can reach me if you're in trouble--if you're in trouble, don't hesitate--"

He did, as well as a postal address. That year they saw each other two more times: once just for the day, just for a lunch and a walk, and then once when Jon had a school trip to London and avoided his hotel roommates to go and meet with Gerry at a pub. In Jon's neighbourhood Gerry stood out; in the city, the eccentricity of Gerry's dress only made him more unremarkable, and Jon walked close to him, feeling less like a glowing target. At their pub table Gerry muttered half to himself, back to thinking about the Atlas of the Moirae: "Oxford and Bournemouth are a hell of a pair of places to tie up in knots," he was saying.

"Oxford _is_ full of famous books," said Jon, not sure if he was contributing. "I mean, the Bodleian alone."

"That's true," said Gerry, but Jon was fairly sure he was being nice.

They parted soon; Jon had to go back to his group, and he understood also that there were places Gerry would not walk with him--not because they were unsafe on their own, but because they were likelier to be frequented by his mother. Jon had spent countless hours now trying to arrange an image of Mary Keay, but he had never seen one. When he tried to imagine her, he could only imagine the harshness she brought out in Gerry's face sometimes. The snide or cruel things he would say, and then the flinch of what he thought of himself, for saying it. She was reflected in what she did to him. But Jon had no idea what that looked like.

His life was a lucky one. Or it was absent any terrible luck. It was just empty.

Jon wasn't afraid of Mary Keay. He was just afraid of dinner ending, and that silence where they knew it was over, and he had to try not to find transparent ways to delay. Before then, though, he said, "I have something for you," and he gave Gerry a gift: the book _Titus Groan_.

"It isn't magical," he said, smiling. "Well, not apart from the usual way."

Gerry squeezed his shoulder; it didn't seem like enough, maybe, because he reached up to ruffle Jon's hair. And that didn't seem like enough either, but he squeezed his shoulder again and looked down. By now Jon understood. Like with other things, Gerry had never had the chance to get in the practice of receiving gifts.

* * *

In Bournemouth again, when Jon was sixteen, he went to meet Gerry in the hotel where he was staying. They sat on the white, pleasantly made bed together and Gerry unloaded from his suitcase the unwieldy form of the Atlas of the Moirae.

It looked surprisingly fragile. Not ancient, but delicate--like cover and pages all were made from the flimsiest, mothwing-frail paper. Jon expected Gerry to warn him off interacting with it, but he didn't; the air felt charged with Jon's own nervousness as he sat on the bed and considered that Gerry hadn't told him what he was doing in Bournemouth at all this time. Gerry didn't seem to be in a bad way, but contemplative and quiet. There was an intensity to his greeting, a way that lingered.

When the book was arrayed, unopened, on the floor, Gerry sat down on the bed next to Jon. He studied Jon--who tried not to look away in self-conscious shyness, knowing now that this was an immature habit, wondering what about him there possibly was to study.

To Jon's surprise as well, he took both of Jon's hands in his. They were warm: other people's hands tended to be, Jon did not have particularly excellent circulation.

For some reason Jon assumed this was for some occult purpose. But Gerry just held them for emphasis when he said, "I am going to ask you to help me. I cannot promise you that it will be safe. It has not harmed my mother or I or anyone else I have known to touch its pages. But there are no guarantees with this part of the world. No senses of security you can lull yourself into. I can't promise you. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was important."

"Yes," said Jon.

"It's a question, Jon. I won't be hurt or angry if you say no. You don't have to."

Jon stared at him. "I said yes. What do I have to do?"

The task, Gerry told him, was that Gerry was going to open the atlas to a particular page and that he would ask Jon to lay his hand, palm-down, on its surface briefly. Then Jon could take it away again.

Jon knelt down next to the book to be ready. Did he feel ready? --He did. With a thrum of fear.

What was he afraid of?

What he couldn't admit. He was afraid, only, that it wouldn't come out to be real.

Gerry opened the atlas to a particular place--two white blank pages, vast-seeming in their emptiness. Jon, with a shaking hand, reached out--"is here good?" (Gerry nodded.)

He put his hand down on the page. He didn't die.

Red ink twirled out from the edges of the page, first in a few gossamer threads, to run through the centre to his hand. These threads joined there, but he felt nothing; he just watched as others joined them, in more complexity, and still others, and more and more, weaving a pattern of breathtaking complexity. Then dizzying complexity. Then incomprehensible complexity.

"You can stop," said Gerry from next to him. It took Jon a moment to remember to lift his hand.

The pattern faded.

Gerry closed the book. His eyes, dark and dark-lashed, were intent with something, some powerful emotion that Jon couldn't read. Maybe more than one. It was only an instant later that he understood that one of them was sorrow, and then Gerry put his hand out to Jon's cheek, curled, to touch it lightly. Then he kissed him.

It was gentle, on the lips, but unmistakable. Jon felt his whole body flush; something in him was threatening to crumble, and he kissed back eagerly. Then Gerry pulled back from him and said: "I'm sorry. It's you. I didn't realise--I didn't know at first, and then I didn't want to know. But I should have--you really are special. There's no way otherwise that someone like me," a tight little smile, "would have encountered someone like you."

"I don't understand."

"The pattern, I mean. The Great Design in this place is all wrapped around you."

Jon blinked at him.

"I don't understand either," said Gerry, quietly. "But you are someone who--I mean, I'm lucky. And I'm sorry. And I want to help you, I just didn't--I didn't know. All these times--"

"Do you like me?" Jon burst out.

Gerry stared at him, taken aback.

"You kissed me." The book was still sort of between them, which was awkward, physically; Jon stood and offered Gerry a hand up, which, after a moment's hesitation, he took. "Does that mean you like me, romantically? You like me in general? You're attracted to me, you want to--I mean, you like me?"

This came out with all the grace of a machine gun, but Gerry sat down next to him on the hotel bed again. He looked fond and a bit bewildered. "Of course," he said. "I do like you. Romantically and in general. I'm attracted to you. I definitely want to," he made a wry face, "and yes, I like you."

"So why are you sorry?" said Jon. "If you're going to be sorry about something, be sorry about not having read _Gormenghast_. I gave it to you last year."

Gerry coughed, which was sort of a paralytic laugh; he looked disbelieving. He took Jon's hand in both his hands and stared at the book on the floor, and back at Jon, in wonder. Like he'd just made him eggs.

Jon smiled at him, which became a little grin: "Because I know you didn't. You haven't mentioned it." He leaned in and touched noses; but Gerry was insistent on packing the atlas away again before they could determine any further course of action.


End file.
